If you’re spending time in the outdoors, having a fire is useful for many reasons: for heat, for cooking, for boiling drinking water, for drying off, for drying clothing, for light, for keeping wild animals away and even as a signal if you are lost and need to be rescued.  “Nothing will improve your morale [...]

How long does a hedgehog live? Until very recently, not even the world’s top experts were totally sure.   Even Sophie Lund Rasmussen, a Danish scientist sometimes known by her YouTube handle “Dr. Hedgehog,” thought they could only live to be 9 years old in the wild. Then she found Thorvald.  Thorvald is the name of [...]

If you’ve been backcountry skiing, you may have seen dogs bounding after their owners on the slopes. Maybe you’ve even seen ski patrol dogs at work at the resort. But a cat? Carving turns?  These days, more people are bringing their cats with them on outdoor adventures, said Canadian skier and cat dad James Eastham [...]

If you’re anything like us, when Friday hits, you yearn for a weekend retreat with friends or family that doesn’t require weeks of planning, research and reservations. You just want to get away. That’s where camping comes in! We’ve compiled the 25 best campgrounds within two hours of Portland, Oregon. While Portland is a metropolis, [...]

Many outdoor adventurers are reluctant birders. Climbing mountains, busting out miles and clocking vertical gain can all feel very glamorous. In contrast, squinting through a pair of binoculars can feel decidedly less so. That’s how we felt, too—until we heard about Cornell University’s massive global birding event.  The Great Backyard Bird Count may have a [...]

As rescue efforts grow more desperate in the wake of the Turkey-Syria earthquake, specially trained search-and-rescue dogs from across the U.S. are being shipped out to help.   The earthquake, which struck regions of Turkey and Syria on February 6, destroyed hundreds of buildings and left tens of thousands dead. The international response has been massive, [...]